


bad endings.

by Ghosting (98_TONYO)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (might still die), Assassination Attempt(s), Blood and Violence, Canon Compliant, Canon Divergence, Drabble, Dreams and Nightmares, Eiselcross, Elements, Exploration of ways that essek might have died, Gen, Light Angst, Nightmares, POV Essek Thelyss, but explores, for some reason, written as a coping mechanism for C2E122
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29041857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/98_TONYO/pseuds/Ghosting
Summary: Essek's relationship with the Mighty Nein can be especially fraught at times, but what if things had turned out differently?An exploration of 'bad ending' routes. And a whole lot of projection.Vague references to spoilers up until C2E122.
Relationships: The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Kudos: 14





	bad endings.

He stands on the deck of the ship— but this time he’s not watching his former Taskhand get traded away. The bite of metal is cold on his wrists; his mouth is gagged to prevent spellcasting. Instead, they walk him over, Beauregard’s strong arms grasping the cuffs and by extension him, in place. And he looks into Ludinus’ eyes and sees nothing but amused contempt, or as much of that emotion that lays beneath the neutral countenance of that wise old fucker. He looks. From the corner of his eye stares Caleb, eyes cold and unwavering as they hand him to his death.

The nights are cold as they try to torture out the secrets of dunamancy from him. Different methods, magical and physical. Once, he would have easily and willingly traded these secrets away for some direction in the dark abyss he was floundering desperately in— an opportunity or sign, any glimpse of hope, of learning just that something more. He finds himself holding on to that secret knowledge, if anything, to make their job difficult. He was captured and taken quietly in the night but he would not go that way into the dark. If he had to go kicking and screaming, so be it.

He has nothing to lose anymore.

*

It is different now, another iteration. 

He stands, stunned, the knife snug between his ribs and just barely missing his spine. He is eerily aware of the way his flesh accommodates the cold, ever so slowly warming metal, the way his muscles tense around it. Amidst the shocking chill of searing pain, he doesn’t feel anything at all. Not the way that his breath catches when he breathes in deep and belatedly registers his punctured lung or the feverish itch under his skin as he can’t help but glance around him, desperate for help.

He’s in his tower and no one comes here. He is a recluse, a hermit at times, unapproachable and suspicious. He had friends, once. But they’re far away now. He doesn’t scream. He knows there is no one to hear him.

He collapses onto the floor, blood soaking into his mantle.

He was afraid of this, of any kind of this, had said so to the only people who had cared to listen.

But right now, as his vision fades, he finds that punishment can be surprisingly nice.

*

The jagged grey mountains serve as his backdrop when he levitates into the air, fingers curling as gravity bends and contorts and bows beneath his will. The adventurers are brought to a heavy, motionless standstill. They were close to revealing him. This motley crew of intriguing individuals who stared at each other with something akin to care.

_Maybe if it had been something like this, it would have been better. Maybe if he had not known them at all, if their only point of contact had been as distant enemies. Maybe here, he would have succumbed to their unpredictable and chaotic force, good at its heart. Unlike his. Maybe even their righteous intentions and bright light would have been snuffed out by his influence, crushed under the weight of his voracious, all-consuming ambition. He would have returned to his tower, unaware of its coldness, to continue his machinations. Or, he would have been another corpse on the battlefield, just another number in the math of it all._

But here, now, he holds his next spell.

*

The snow seeps into his cloak, thicker than the mantle that he wears back at Xhorhas. It sinks into his bones, weighs down his every step. He starts to lose feeling in his fingers but that’s the least of his worries. He’s bleeding out, faster than he thought possible— and for that miscalculation, he’s now collapsed out on the snow, next to the ruins of an ancient floating city. Did they have a beacon here, hidden at its core, undiscovered? Would some poor child born with his memories of betrayal, war and endless night, want to continue, knowing that this is who they were?

He had heard words, unknown to him, repeated by Jester whose normally sweet and joyous voice had turned anxious and fearful. Words, that for some reason gave him nightmares of red eyes and the chaotic broiling of something deep in the astral sea. Of his friends, no, his allies, turning against him. He would not mistake their constant silence for friendship. He knows when he has been a guest too long— he knows it is time for him to exit stage left.

The stars seem to laugh at him, mocking with their cocky self-assurance. ‘ _These are not your friends, they never were,’_ the pinpricks of light say to him. _‘You, just like how you saw them, were just another tool, potential, and waiting. They are my friends and they will go to the ends of the earth for me. You were never part of this. Not in the way that mattered.’_

He curses himself for wanting. For another chance, another moment. Another breath as the darkness finally claims him.

*

He opens his eyes slowly, the lingering dawn illuminating the room in a faint cobalt. The first couple of nights, he had jolted out of the bed, chest heaving— but he’s grown used to the nightmares. With every passing night, they feel less and less like nightmares and more like fragments of reality. He is tired and cold in this icy expanse and it bites at him more and more each passing moment. 

It is just another day.

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you just have to stare at the things that scare you the most in the face.


End file.
